Since time immemorial, DisplayMate has done a review on the screen of Samsung's upcoming flagship just before launch. Well, it's that time of the year, and they're at it again with Samsung's Note8. As you'd expect, all the numbers look pretty fantastic. But the most shocking by far is the 1,200 nits of brightness that Samsung's latest can spit out. I hope everyone saved their eclipse glasses.

The new 2960x1440 18.5:9 24-bit AMOLED panel in the Note8 uses the same flexible-substrate OLED tech Samsung is known for, topped with Gorilla Glass 5. As you'd expect, it uses a PenTile-type matrix for subpixels, which Samsung calls "Diamond Pixels" due to their shape. With the reduced bezels it's obviously just a bit bigger than the display on any other Note or Galaxy phone. But the coolest thing by far is the brightness on the panel.

It can hit a maximum of 1,200 nits, 22% brighter than the already ridiculous Galaxy S8.

The display also supports an even wider color gamut, user-adjustable white-point, improved color accuracy, improved viewing angles, a new hardware-based always on implementation, better auto-brightness control, better power savings modes, and it's certified for Mobile HDR Premium. Color calibration for the display is also fantastic, with a high degree of accuracy and coverage for each of the three color-spaces supported (sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3). The white-point in most calibrated modes is also set very near 6500K.

TL;DR, it's a really good quality display, and that's all most of you need to know. If you want the full breakdown, though, continue on below.

Color Details

Color news is a mixed bag, but that isn't the Note8's fault. Although the display has a large gamut (with 112% DCI-P3 and 141% sRGB coverage) and great color accuracy, since the Note8 ships with Nougat anything past sRGB coverage will be useless in most apps. Although Android O will have better native support for wider color gamuts, expanded coverage in most apps just results in over-saturation, making sRGB about as good as it gets most of the time, though there are exceptions.

Color coverage for each display setting (left) and accuracy in the widest setting, DCI-P3 (right)

Colors on the Note8's screen appear to be just the tiniest bit over-saturated, but any deviation is going to be small. Overall it looks like an accurate calibration across DCI-P3 (Cinema Screen Mode), Adobe RGB (Photo Color Mode), and sRGB (Basic Screen Mode). At 500 lux they measured 91% accuracy for sRGB, which isn't bad. As long as you set the right mode for your content (again, 99% of the time on Android this means sRGB/Basic), you should see some good color accuracy.

It also ships with an Adaptive Display Screen Mode that dynamically adjusts the display based on content, which can hit incredible levels of color saturation, if you're determined to have things be as inaccurate/"vivid" as possible. It also has a Blue Light Filter which does exactly what you expect, and it isn't an additive overlay. That means when you flip it on at night the display doesn't get any brighter to make colors warmer, and you don't have to deal with washed-out gray-reds instead of black.

The white point values are also quite good and very near 6500K in each of the gamut-configured modes. In adaptive mode, though, you can only set it to between 6,800K and 8,800K, which is cooler than ideal.

Power Consumption, Viewing Angles, Etc.

The Note8 has three adjustable Power Saving Modes that can reduce the display power by lowering brightness and changing background colors. Compared to the Galaxy S8, the new display uses 2-8% less power (depending on brightness) for the same given unit of brightness/area. It's not a tremendous increase, but it might make a bit of a dent.

Brightness, contrast, and color-shift for off-angle viewing are nearly identical to the display on the Galaxy S8. That is to say, they're pretty fantastic, and you shouldn't run into any problems there. Screen reflections are also about the same as the Galaxy S8, and both phones are right up against the lowest measurements DisplayMate has ever recorded.

Overall, the Note8's display is bound to please, and it's almost certainly one of the best ones you can buy. At least, if things like a 1,200 nit max brightness and accurate colors are details you care about.

My N6P passed also. But the last time I checked it...months ago...it failed. But it's been updated since then. My S8 still fails, though.

Saturn Indra

My S8 passed. I think yours is defect or something. Both the Pixel and 6P also uses Samsung AMOLED.

Marty

Yours didn't pass. You just refuse to see it.

MattPortland

Maybe his passed just fine you're just biased blind. I bet that's the case. You basically called him a liar. So not cool.

Marty

And you didn't read about the issue. If you had, you'd have seen that it's a problem with all OLEDs using a certain technology. This is what it says. So stop being offended at reality.

From Technobuffalo: "Bleeding is actually a common defect with OLEDs, and technically speaking, is a result of the use of low-temperature polycrystalline silicon. When Samsung finally switches to indium gallium zinc oxide, it shouldn’t be a problem anymore."

If you want to test your own device, use Sony Sketch or some other paint app and create a white background and draw straight black, horizontal lines on it. Sketch has a ruler to do that with. Then simply observe the black lines to see if a ghost image extends beyond the black lines.

Zsolt V

I opened the"reputable" source and saw the title "Some users....". That's when I stopped reading. There is an agenda for everything, so you will find your POV supported by some people, like yourself.

No reputable site reported any problems whatsoever with the S8. It has been the only phone that I can remember that this can be said about.

And as far as your app, if it's true, that's undoubtedly an aliasing effect as the S8 renders at 1080p even if the screen is higher res. So there will be an aliasing effect on 1 pixel lines unless you turn on full res rendering. In any case, this is not visible in real like usage.

Marty

Ohh, okay, you're afraid. Better to dismiss it and live in denial rather than doing what I did and look for myself. I did the simple test and saw exactly what was reported on all of my OLED devices except my 3T.

And that was just the first site to come up in a Google search. If my recollection serves me well, it was originally reported by Anandtech.

Well you could search for yourself, you know? Simply search for S8 ghosting problems. See for yourself. 😊

Major Sceptic

I have 4 amoled devices and one ips screened device , all of them work fine , but amoled is far more desirable imo ,
Beautiful colors that pop , good brightness and viewing angles , zero screen bleed unlike the ips which is clearly suffering screen bleed , pretty average viewing angles and only barely passable legibility out in the daylight .
Needless to say my next device will have an amoled display .

Marty

A better search is "image bleed on S8" That brought up more relevant results.

illregal

It's totally a thing.. Even happens in something as simple as hmmm... Checking an email. All the fonts have ghosting going all the way out to the sides.

Zsolt V

No they don't. I just my S8+ all day long for email, and there is no such thing happening.

Semianonymous

Tested. Mine doesn't have ghosting, and the ghosting in those images is so faint that you'd have to be hunting for them to see it. So maybe it does and my ridiculously good eyes aren't extremely ridiculously good enough to see it. This, I doubt.

You make a hundred bajillion screens a year, you're gonna have some extremely minor variation that only bothers the nittest of pickers.
Shrug.tif

Bottom line, you have a flagship Samsung phone, you have the best even in the business...period.

illregal

FALSE.

New_Guy

???

illregal

"Bottom line, you have a flagship Samsung phone, you have the best even in the business...period." FALSE

New_Guy

Ha! Yeah, okay....

Phillip

Ok well lets say 99% of the folks say an believe Samsung makes the best display . Hell even apple had to come around

Reydiance

Ghosting? AMOLEDs have 1ms response time.

blindexecutioner

Now we wait for the reports of pink tinted screens.

Saturn Indra

they fixed that already

Vincent

The displaymate article is a bit confusingly written. They make it sound that every improvement is compared to the S8/S8+, but a lot of the improvements are actually compared to the note 7.. at least that's what get out of it.

Mike

I already have zero problems seeing my S8s screen on a super bright day, I can't even imagine how bright this must get.

Ryne Hager

Yeah, they're inconsistent. I think they started with the premise that it would be a huge improvement over the S8 and either found it wasn't a game-changer and decided to change that focus, or they just couldn't keep track.

Phillip

Don't let Marty hear you say that . He got the only s8 with the F***ed up screen out of over 25 millons sold . And there's a ghost in his phone hehehe 😱😱

What are you pointing out? There's absolutely nothing but your drawn red lines after those black bars. Are you pointing out that there's no ghosting, or are you seriously seeing something there? Are your eyes playing tricks on you? Am I the only one who can't see any ghosting on that pic?

I wonder about ghosting like on the S8 and pretty much every OLED display other than the Oneplus units?

Ryne Hager

Unfortunately that's just normal behavior for most AMOLED panels. IPS displays can also exhibit it, but usually it isn't as noticeable unless there's a mitigating factor like aggressive RTC overshoot. Usually you just get a bit of smearing if it's properly calibrated on an IPS panel. But yeah, for AMOLED ghosting is a thing.

Ohh...so the S8 is known to exhibit ghosting and easily tested and I did test it...and all of my other OLED-equipped phones...and saw with my own eyes the exemplified ghosting. However, I did not see the exemplified ghosting on my 3T, your declaration is more valid than actual experience, huh?

Typical upside down liberal probably.

someone755

What do his political views have to do anything?

"Oh I see you don't like steak. Typical brown-eyed idiot."

Marty

Lol...it was a joke. Apparently too dry, though. 😋

Phillip

Marth just cause you keep repeatedly saying it doesn't make it a issue 3 s8 in my house an 6 friends with s8 an we've seen no 😱😱😱😱

Marty

Do the test

illregal

Dude.. 3 in the house, and 6 friends with them.. Does anyone you know have an original thought.

Phillip

Well they don't want a iPhone soooo like most it's gonna be a Samsung . S8 checks all the boxes this year .in my house I pay the phone bill sooooit's gonna be a Samsung Galaxy . Your house do what you do

oplix

Just to be clear. The only improvement is the brightness. All the other improvements listed are from the last generation AMOLED which was on the S7/note7 series. S8 already has the newest generation amoled.

Lord Argyris

If anybody's in the market for both a new phone and one of those LED studio lights, this would be a tremendous 2-in-1 deal.

Seriously, I'd love to see a 1,200 lumen panel fully lit up. Just not in the dark.

ZettabyteGamer

The screen is not 1200 lumen, it's 1200 nits. You'd go blind if you were staring at a 1200 lumen screen all day.

You are correct a nit is a fancy term for candela per square foot, 1200 nits is about 111 lumens. Also it only goes that bright say when outdoors in the direct sun light, normal operation in auto mode is around 500 nits which is still impressive

Lord Argyris

Gotcha. I need to read these things a little more carefully.

illregal

You can't even stare at a 1200 nit screen all day. Because it would only achieve max brightness in auto in direct sunlight. If you turn auto off, and put it at max brightness you're probably in the 5-600 range only.

Eddy Nelson Lopez

Too bad such a beautiful display will have burn-in, that's the only bad thing about AMOLED.

Ryne Hager

Eh, I don't think it'd be a problem. Short-term retention is one thing, but even my Nexus 6 with software keys hasn't suffered any permanent burn-in in the years that I've had it. I'd doubt it'll be a problem here, and you get orders of magnitude better contrast ratios over an IPS panel.

drcaveman

I have a AMOLED screen since the Galaxy Nexus, and I have in all these years never seen any kind of Screen retention. I had the note 5 the longest going on 2 years now and it's a clean beautiful display just like the day I bought it. I've had the S8+ since launch and the same it a gorgeous screen.

With that said knock on wood.

drcaveman

My Dell LED LCD at work is awful with screen burn in and retention of the Solidworks interface, Dell has already replaced it twice.

Phillip

If owed every samsung since the Galaxy one an no screen burn . The only burned in screen I've ever saw are from the ones that are on display at Best buy that are left on full brightness all day .

needa

You have had burn in. Promise. Dig out an old phone and download a solid blue image. Red and green too ifs you want. No gradients in pic. Turn up your brightness and tick away the notification and nav bars. There will be burn in. Odds are a gs8 already has burn in. I know gs7s do already. But 100% older phones will have it. The pigment half life(s) were nowhere near as good as they are now.

Phillip

If I have to do all that to see screen burn then I can live with that ,I just pulled my old s4 out the draw an fired it up that old 1080 screen still looks better than anything apple has produced to this day . Bottom line samsung knows displays an are the best at it

Michael Rodgers

Yeah, why would I want to go through all of that to check for burn-in. That is not normal usage, at least not for me.

Semianonymous

Only AMOLED I've got with burn in is my Nexus One. These days, you've gotta be doing something wrong to get any degree of burn in.

needa

I have burn in on my seven month old XL already and I rarely have my brightness above 20%. The burn in is only at the nav bar, but I can almost make some out in the notif bar. If I had beeter eyes I probably could.

tim242

You mean image retention. I have never had that on any phone. I have had AMOLED displays since the Galaxy Nexus.

HotelQuebec

Anxiously awaiting DxOMark results.

Arysyn

Ugh, still Pentile. Hopefully LG's mobile OLED will not be Pentile and will beat Samsung's AMOLED at these factors. Already, LG is featuring burn-in prevention for its new mobile OLED, so hopefully everything else will be great on it.

TedPhillips

at a sufficiently high density, does it matter?

Walkop

I think the only real difference is noticeable for VR.

Phillip

LG has been trying to go head to head with Sammy since forever ....to the the point where samsung no longer pays LG any attention . It's a 2 horse race

Shane

I have a Droid turbo. S6e. Galaxy s8. None have burn in or ghosting. I suspect you all stare at your phone more then you should. Bragging about 6hrs sot straight lol

You're kidding, right? Every LG phone (IPS LCD) I've seen has a very obvious blue tint to the whites. With the exception of one iPhone in the family, we all have SAMOLED displays, and the whites are white as snow.

Large_Hadron

"Brightness, contrast, and color-shift for off-angle viewing are nearly identical to the display on the Galaxy S8. That is to say, they're pretty fantastic, and you shouldn't run into any problems there. "

An interesting comment, because with the several S8's I've played with colour shift off-angle has been the most obvious drawback of the panel. Maybe the way they define it doesn't measure an overall tint?

illregal

basically, displaymate is garbage. They only test samsung displays, because samsung pays them. Then once they're almost caught, they'll come out with an iphone test. But if they were legit.. where are all the tests for huawei, xiaomi,lg,htc,motorola,oneplus,etc, etc. Oh thats right, those companies don't pay for good reviews. Did everyone forget the pink s8 screens, and how can the best screen have horrible glares on the left and right quarter inch of the screens. it's bs.

Walkop

They've tested a ton of companies all the time. They review Nexus devices very very well. Microsoft devices also scored top points in many categories. Saying they're Samsung biased when Samsung very clearly makes some of the best displays in the world is a bit nonsensical.

illregal

No. What devices have they tested in 2017.. the s8 and note 8. Anything else?

AnakiMana

The Google Pixel was reviewed in 2017. They have an article for 2017 Flagships and focused on comparing Pixel, iPhone and Samsung. It seems to me that they do a lot of time consuming work and focus on publishing the most popular models... but I won't claim to KNOW, I'm just speculating.

AnakiMana

Also, those phones make the most sense if the goal is to drive the most traffic to their site to promote their services. Why spend a lot of time and resources on something very very few people care about, like phones that hardly get any sales or attention?

AnakiMana

Where's your evidence, references to those claims? Show us how you know that they only test Samsung displays because they're bribed, and only iPhone displays when they're about to be caught. You're full of it. Oh, and the pink screens? They fixed them with an update, as it was only a software issue. I haven't heard mention of it since the first week the S8 was in customers' hands. It's not a thing anymore.

Mohamed adel ali

I think if every OEM turned to use Amoled Display
people will stop buying Samsung phone

Adam Margeson

Samsung makes its own display technology and then licenses their older stuff out to most everyone else. Samsung is one of the few that is legitimately pushing display technology. I don't buy Samsung phones, but their display tech is pretty much the best out there.

Walkop

In AMOLED displays, they are unrivaled. For LCDs, Sharp is pretty much a market leader. They have some incredible displays. Extremely power efficient.

Mohamed adel ali

Sony is going to use OLED starting from 2018 but will get these display from JAPAN Display
so there will be competitor beside LG will use OELD on thier v30
The competition next year will be so high

Steven Anon

I really wish Samsung would allow their phones to be rooted easier and the boot loader unlocked. It's the only thing holding me back from buying in. The last Samsung I owned was the S3 and it was an amazing phone at the time. After that I bought a nexus and never looked back. I'm currently using a Nexus 6. It's 2 years old and while it an still hang with the big dogs and no other phone has even remotely made me think about changing, the Note 8 just looks absolutely amazing. But I need my stock android and a development community. Locked boot loaders just shoot that ideal in the head.

Felonious Monk ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ

Putting stock Android on a Note 8 is like putting a 1963 Chevy engine in a Rolls Royce.

Adam Margeson

Sure, but that Chevy engine is a hell of a lot easier to work on and find parts for.

Steven Anon

I think you have that backwards.

Semianonymous

The Note is a device that needs a lot of the custom work Samsung has done, otherwise the stylus loses a lot of functionality.
Also between modern hardware, the legitimately useful features not-touchwiz brings to the table and the somewhat decent (albeit far from sufficient) job Samsung has done of un-fucking their modifications has brought Samsung hardware to the point where I no longer feel the need to root them. Visually, you've got almost full control thanks to the theming engine if that's a concern as well.
Ultimately, to each their own but if you plan to use the stylus, you don't want stock Android.

AnakiMana

I'd like that too, but the last few phones I thought about ROMming didn't have any 100% working ROMs available. There was always some problem with the camera, or limitations, or features that you'd have to live without. I hated the thought of not having something I should. Fortunately Samsung has become extremely stable and the only thing I miss that root gave me was Titanium Backup, of which I bought Pro. I used to root for Greenify, but Android evolved a lot in battery saving since then and I no longer worry about my battery draining if my toddler turned off the power strip my charger's plugged into and I didn't notice til morning! The Note 4 was my last Note (8 on the way though) and with custom launchers it was a fantastic experience keeping it unrooted & locked all its life. Sometimes I accidentally went over 30 days without rebooting it because it was so stable... definitely was faster upon reboot, but didn't suffer instability, even with tons of apps installed. So, in summary, my experience is that times have changed and it ain't so bad now days. But it sure would be nice if rooting & ROMming were easier, for the sake of playing around and completely customizing OUR phones. I mean, we own them now, not the manufacturer anymore.

balcobomber25

1200 nits and a 3300mAh battery, can't wait to see how terrible battery life is gonna be.

AnakiMana

"The Galaxy Note8 has slightly higher Power Efficiency and slightly lower Relative Power Consumption than the Galaxy S8." -Dr. Raymond Soneira, President of DisplayMate

Considering it has a bigger battery it should have higher power efficiency but comparing it to the S8 doesn't help your case. If the Note 8 battery life is comparable or even slightly better than the S8 it is going to be terrible for a 6.3 inch phone.

AnakiMana

Did you look at the table and data therein under the power section? My link above takes you straight to the section. He explains how he tested it, accounting for that. I think it satisfies your concern.

balcobomber25

Yup and here is the exact quote from the article:

"The Galaxy Note8 has slightly higher Power Efficiency and slightly lower Relative Power Consumption than the Galaxy S8."

That tells us absolutely nothing about how it will compete against other flagship phablets that are all rumored to have much larger batteries with the same components. The S8 didn't have great battery life, the Note 8 only being "slightly" better isn't a good sign.

AnakiMana

Ok, I didn't know what the battery life was like on the S8 Plus, so I just looked up a review, the 1st one Google listed under "S8 Plus battery life". It sounds pretty good to me. More is always better, but 1.5 days battery life, and 11% drain after a 90 minute video at Quad HD sounds good. The extra RAM of the Note8 is said to increase battery efficiency, so I'm guessing we'll see about the same battery performance as the S8 Plus. http://www.techradar.com/reviews/samsung-galaxy-s8-plus-review/3

balcobomber25

Until it's tested in depth and compared to other flagship phablets (which are all releasing in the next month) we won't really know how it compares. If it's the same as the S8+ though, that's not that good.

AnakiMana

Check it out... a real life battery test between the Note8, S8+ and iPhone 7 Plus - and the smaller Note8 battery lasts the longest. https://youtu.be/0BcpLU-3j3w

It'll still be good to see comparisons with the other flagships too. It's looking positive, though!

balcobomber25

Again this isn't really saying much the iPhone and S8+ aren't exactly known for good battery life to begin with. Using GSMArena's Battery test here is how they both score:

iPhone 7 Plus - 75
S8+ - 88
Xiaomi Mi Mix - 97
Xiaomi Mi Note 2 - 92

Felonious Monk ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ

To be Frank, that's pretty Nitti.

MattPortland

Same shit, different day at Android Police. 'Your phone a piece of shit because this website I found says so. "